BUFFALO, N.Y. — We are celebrating twin sisters who opened a café in Buffalo almost three years ago. They are now moving and expanding their business.
The original Unapologetic Coffee location on Main Street in Buffalo near Utica will now be dedicated to roasting the coffee, and the café will move to the new BestSelf building down the street.
"When we first started out, we were just roasting in the current space, and then we expanded and opened up a café, which kind of blew up in its own right," said Alicia Officer, Unapologetic Coffee co-owner and CEO.
Twin sisters Alicia and Alisa Officer opened Unapologetic Coffee in late 2021. Now they're on the move from the 1300 block to the 800 block of Main Street in Buffalo in the new BestSelf building. This opportunity presented itself about a year ago.
"It just worked out perfectly. So we decided, let's close our café completely in the one location, focus and dedicate it back to roasting, and move the whole kit and caboodle down here," Alicia Officer said.
The new space comes with knowing people who work at BestSelf will have a place to grab coffee and a bite to eat without leaving their building. The twins are keeping their full menu and partnering with a bunch of local businesses to offer lots of options.
"We're working with a lot of local purveyors — including Zio's Deli on Elmwood, Meet and Eat Charcuterie, and Sadie's Relish — to bring a lot of their items and key items into our store, so we wanted to make sure that this space paid an homage to a lot of restaurant owners in the city," Alicia Officer said.
Alisa Officer, Unapologetic Coffee co-owner and COO, added: "What we thought about was, we're not competing against everyone. We have made friends in the coffee industry. We always crack jokes with the girls from Underground. We always kiki together and, you know, we've used Logan's Bagels for years now in our shop, so we've always tried to include others where we can, like, that's our whole motto is coffee, and community, and culture."
They transformed the space to make it their own while keeping one of the original steel beams visible.
They hired Brittany Glover, who has extensive restaurant experience, to be the general manager. They've known her for almost 20 years.
"We have Brittany, who is basically like having a triplet, and even though she is a twin herself, it's like having a triplet here, so we are so confident that this store is going to be everything that the city asked for, what we wanted it to deliver," Alicia Officer said,
The soft opening is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 6. There's a special event with people from Yelp! and the City of Buffalo Animal Shelter on Dec. 7 that will include adoptable dogs, and it will be dog-friendly. On Sunday, Dec. 8 they plan on celebrating at the café with a DJ.
"A good experience, friendly faces, quick turnaround," Glover said.